Sharon Haver - FocusOnStyle.comStyle Expert and Online Business Personal Brand Success Strategist for fellow women entrepreneurs, Sharon Haver shares expert fashion, business and lifestyle tips to step into your STAR Power. The FocusOnStyle fashion blog was founded in 1999, and includes the 7 Days to Amazing Podcast, and Quick Tips how to video series.

How to Accessorize a Suit and Add Versatility to Your Wardrobe- Video Style Tips

Many of us think of a simple business suit as something rather humdrum. But that needn’t be the case as a well-cut suit is one of the most versatile additions to your wardrobe and truly something worth investing in.

In this how-to style video from my about.com fashion video series I show you seven ways to wear a suit from casual to dressy and, of course, for the office!

We started with a grey lightweight wool, single-breasted slim suit by Jill Sander. The simplicity of the cut makes it a no-brainer to mix and match thoughout your wardrobe– the more fussy and overly detailed a suit is, the less versatile it becomes. Style on…

About.com says “Don’t think of your business suit as blah – with a little imagination it can be your most versatile pieces in your closet! See how to accessorize and dress a business suit from day to night.”

Transcript: Dress a Suit Up or Down Hi, I’m Sharon Haver – I’m the founder of focus on style.com. We’re here for About.com at Barney’s New York, and we’re going to look at different ways to accessorize your suit.

Dress a Suit Without Accessories

And what Nora here, our model is wearing, is a very classic thin leg grey suit. It’s really beautiful it’s really chic. Most people think of accessories as the obvious. They think of things that come out of your jewelry box. They think of necklaces, they think of earrings, bracelets, rings, baubles, scarves, but you also need to think of your clothing as accessories, because each piece accessorizes what else you’re wearing.

Causal Business Suit

Another way to wear the basic suit maybe just slightly more casual – so you can take a boyfriend cardigan, and you can put it on with a T-Shirt over the grey pants, and I would wrap a belt around it. And it’s a completely different look for the same grey pants and it doesn’t even look like it’s a part of the suit.

Taking a bright colored sweater, like this, which is a bright green, and it’s also a really casual look and maybe you’d want to pull one of your scarves and add that as an accent. But once again it’s a completely different look.

Business Suit Evening Look

We can also think of different ways to work it for the evening, look at how this is just the perfect example of clothing as an accessory. It has the most vivid magenta color. It has this drapery. It’s almost like an origami, there’s some texture to the top. It’s the perfect, perfect beautiful blouse and it looks gorgeous and the only accessory she needed to add if she only wanted to is a very large very dark cocktail ring.

Toned Down Business Suit

And, as another alternative, we can take something like these white pants, with a fuller peg leg and she can wear the top, and then once you add the look of the grey flannel jacket over it again, it’s completely different look. Almost for a resort and it doesn’t look like anything you would wear to the office.

Chic and Casual Business Suit

What we have now is the basic blazer and we tried to make it look a little bit more casual and chic and it has that kind of French chic look right now by rolling up the sleeves. She’s wearing a dark washed jean, and we have a nice striped top and we added some of these fun little pearls just to sort of dress it up a bit. And you can get a lot of use out of it and it doesn’t resemble the suit that we started out with at all.

We’re going to keep the same look and we’re going to add some really cute short corduroy shorts and then it instantly becomes something you can wear on a weekend.

Casual Friday Business Suit

And also change to basic chinos and that also working with the grey jacket is another good casual Friday kind of office look that looks polished and refined and finally we can take the same jacket and wear a really great pair of shredded jeans or shorts and also make a very fun look and what keeps that looking a little more dressy is the fact of the line of the jacket. And what you can also do is get a really great outfit to go out on a date or to go out for dinner.

Glam a Business Suit

Nora is back in this gorgeous bronze lame dress, which gets a little bit more dignified and with the grey jacket on top of it and it’s very modern it’s very cool. It’s something she can wear anywhere to go out on the town and it’s completely different from what we started from with a very simple very basic grey flannel light weight wool work suit and who would have thought that you could take something as basic as this grey suit and move it onto something sexy and streamlined as this dress.

Thanks for watching, and to learn more please visit us on the Web at About.com.

About Sharon Haver

I'm Style Expert + Success Strategist for women entrepreneurs helping you and your business get out there so you can attract the high-level clients you want.

All my tips come from my real world professional experience.

As a bootstrapping entrepreneur with a business degree in Marketing and a graduate of an extensive amount of business and personal development programs and high-level masterminds, my advice is based on how I successfully run my online business since 1999.

Previously to be being the founder of FocusOnStyle.com, I was a well-known New York fashion stylist on major photo shoots for 15 years, where I styled everything from Vogue covers to advertising campaigns for cheesy products that I made look so good that you would actually want to buy them. I've also had a syndicated newspaper fashion advice column and featured in lots of media.